Issues raised ranged from the candidates' opinions on education, Iraq, the economy, and the War Powers Act. I'll spare you all the details, considering I took about four pages of notes in anticipation of blogging the forum. I will say that Mr. Bosse distinguished himself with his adherence to free market principles
Stop whining, Bob
Monday April 07th 2008, 3:51 pm
Filed under: Blog Posts
State Sen. Bob Clegg complained last week that state GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen had encouraged other candidates, particularly Jennifer Horn, to run for Congress in the 2nd District after Clegg had said he was considering a run.
“Fergus knew I was going to run. Everybody knew I was going run,” Clegg complained.
Well, no they didin’t. Until you are an announced candidate, no one knows anything. Everyone “knew” Frank Guinta was going to run for governor. He didn’t. You’re not in until you’re in.
And so Cullen did exactly what a party chairman is supposed to do. In the absence of an announced candidate, he encouraged good prospects to run.
Clegg hurts himself here in several ways.
One, he looks whiny. Why not just say he welcomes the challenge and project an image of cool confidence?
Two, he presents a scenario in which other influential Republicans think so little of him that they are scheming to derail his candidacy. Why would he create that storyline? It doesn’t help.
Three, he gives Jennifer Horn more credibility.
And four, he gives potential donors a reason to hesitate.
It’s just a bad move all around.
Democrats fall short on earmark reform
In 2007, when the Democrats were swept into majority positions in both houses of Congress, party leaders pledged to cut the number and cost of congressional earmarks in half. They failed.
Instead, these costly pet projects are being tacked onto appropriation bills at a record rate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday officially backed away from efforts to impose a one-year moratorium.
Open Government
When New Hampshire’s initial right-to-know law was signed more than four decades ago, the government’s records were paper, and most formal discussions of public policy took place in face-to-face meetings. These conditions can no longer be assumed. Many government records today are aggregations of data in computer files, and government officials occasionally discuss the public’s business remotely via e-mail or other electronic means.
The (un)fair tax
You don't get a reduced tax bill by opening the door to additional taxes.
Broad-based tax advocates are drooling over the thought of discouraging candidates from taking “the pledge.”
New Hampshire voters are wise to the direction such people want to take in imposing a general income or sales tax. They know it has nothing to do with relieving property tax burdens and everything to do with digging deeper into their pockets.
The tax-and-spenders are at it again — this time under the guise of reducing property tax burdens.
Foreclosure bailouts are unfair to taxpayers
Eventually, the irony of bailing out one of the biggest players in the sub-prime mortgage industry while letting homeowners sink grew too big for Congress to ignore. A flurry of bills was filed to address the housing crisis.
On Thursday, the Senate voted to kill the one measure that would have done the most help to the 2 million or more households still facing foreclosure. It would have allowed bankruptcy court judges to cut the interest rate on a mortgage and lower the principal.
New Hampshire Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu voted with the majority and, hard-hearted as it might seem, they were right to do so.
We need more capitalism and freer markets, not less. We need banks and businesses to face the consequences of their decisions, not be shielded from failure by politicians and bureaucrats. This proposal would stifle innovation and competition in banking, insurance and other financial services and would threaten the financial privacy of all Americans. We don't need socialized banking any more than socialized medicine.
We need more Republicans like Mr. Bosse, who rightfully notes before we can reclaim a Republican majority, we must first "take back the Republican Party." Amen! We need Republicans that will do more than simply pay lip service to our Party's traditional themes and actually act on them as well.
In their addresses, Clegg and Bosse both listed numerous ills plaguing Congress but offered different comments about getting the United States back on track.
As a former New Hampshire Statehouse worker, Bosse - who has also served as a staffer for U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, R-N.H. - said he's encountered numerous politicians "who've put their name on the ballot for the right reasons ... out of the honest belief that they could be a voice for their community. ...
"I've also seen a Republican Congress lose its way (because of) earmarks and backroom deals," he said. "I've seen the Democratic Congress take over, adopt the same bad habits and even invent a few new ones I didn't think were possible."
Bosse was given a shorter period to speak than Clegg because he was originally slated for an earlier meeting that was snowed out. But, he said, "I think we can do better on national defense, I think we can do better on immigration. I think we can free this economy that's on the brink of recession. ... I believe in free markets, free speech and free people...
...In a separate interview with The Sentinel, Bosse gave more details on his proposals.
"My approach to health care would be more choice, fewer mandates. That's going to drive down costs (and) drive up competition," he said, adding "We can lower the cost of health insurance if people can pay some of their routine medical expenses out-of-pocket."
As for foreign policy - which Bosse labeled "Congress's first responsibility" - he said, "I think we need to follow through on the surge (in Iraq)."
After the forum, several audience members said they liked what they heard."
History is made by those who show up. In the Fall of 2006, not many Republican voters showed up. I can’t blame them. The Republican Party, nationally and here in New Hampshire, gave them every reason to stay away.
For the past five years, I’ve worked for Senator John Sununu in his Washington office. During that time, I’ve seen a Republican Congress lose its way in a maze of earmarks and backroom deals. I’ve seen a Republican Congress more interested in holding onto power than in fulfilling its responsibilities.
We’ve seen a Congress unwilling to provide our troops with every tool and every advantage to complete their mission. We’ve seen a Congress unwilling to enforce our immigration laws. We’ve seen Federal spending grow uncontrolled, by a Congress that would rather buy your vote than earn your vote.
We’ve also seen a Democratic Congress adopt the same bad habits, and invent a few of their own. Just last month, Nancy Pelosi had to break House rules in order to pass a watered-down ethics bill. They cheated to pass the ethics bill. I didn’t think you could ever get away with that. But Nancy Pelosi and Paul Hodes said “Yes, We Can!”
I think we can do better. I’m running for Congress to return our federal government to its core priorities. We need to defend this nation from the threat of Islamic Fascism, an evil ideology that wants to bring a new Dark Age upon the world. We need to secure our borders, and make it easier to come to this country legally than illegally. We need to free an economy brought to the brink of recession by taxes, mandates, and overregulation. The American economy is the strongest engine of prosperity in history, and it can recover, as soon as Congress stops trying to help.
I was a College Republican on this campus back in 1994. We weren’t this organized, but we did have a group of Republican candidates willing to tell the American people what they stood for. They offered a Contract with America; to cut the deficit, to make government open and accountable, and to make Congress obey the same rules it imposes on the rest of us. And voters rewarded that message by electing the first Republican majority in the House of Representatives in two generations.
We can take back Congress again, but first we have to take back the Republican Party. We need candidates who refuse to participate in earmarking. We need candidates willing to stand up for free speech, free people, and free markets. Good enough is not good enough anymore. We deserve to be inspired by our candidates. You should demand to be inspired!
History is made by those who show up. You’ve shown up today. Let’s make history.
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Going "Against the Grain" with Gardner Goldsmith:
At the Amherst Fire Station:
Touring downtown Nashua with Paul Haley:
Being interviewed by Karen Testerman on WDER in Concord:
Touring downtown Milford with Ryan Hansen:
The bailout proposal has “two glaring problems: one moral, the other economic.” And it reserves the “privilege” of a bailout “for an estimated 1 million to 2 million homeowners who are the weakest and most careless borrowers,” while excluding responsible “people who made larger downpayments.”
Bosse said he views Cullen and Wendelboe as having very different missions in the state.
"I think they have different goals right now. Fergus' goal as the party chair, his goal is to elect the candidates we nominate, not set the direction of the party," he said. "Fran, her goal in the Reagan Network is to get back to party principles."
Bosse also said that in order for New Hampshire Republicans to rebound in 2008, candidates need to state their case to voters.
"I think we need to convince the voters that we've counted on, that there's a reason to show up at the polls," he said. "They didn't see much at the polls. They saw the state party drifting. They saw the national party drifting."
"We need immediate action to help New Hampshire families struggling with the economic crisis," Hodes said. "Before we address the underlying regulatory problems with the industry, we must take care of the thousands of New Hampshire families struggling to pay their mortgage. Nearly 4300 New Hampshire families will lose their homes by 2009. They need immediate relief and I plan on working with my colleagues on the House Financial Services Committee to help working New Hampshire families struggling to keep their home."
"Secretary Paulsen's proposal to overhaul our antiquated financial bureaucracy is long overdue. But the sweeping increase in power planned for the Federal Reserve is absolutely going in the wrong direction. This 218-page proposal would hand power over our financial lives to the unelected and unaccountable," Bosse said. "We need more capitalism and freer markets, not less. We need banks and businesses to face the consequences of their decisions, not be shielded from failure by politicians and bureaucrats."
Members of the House Education Committee,
I would like to record my opposition to SB 337. This bill would expand the bureaucratic requirements of parents who choose to home school their children, but would not have any impact on the actual education of these children. It has been introduced and forwarded through the Legislature at the request of school administrators. I’m sure they would appreciate home school parents having to deal with some of the unnecessary paperwork that dominates their daily grind, but I don’t see how that would improve the education of New Hampshire kids.
Please remember that our responsibility for education does not rest with a school district or a school building, but with the student. Senator Kelly, in supporting the bill, perhaps gave away her intentions when she said that “children who don’t have great parents rely on us.” Other than a basic mistrust of parents who choose to home school, supporters of SB 337 have provided no evidence for the need to pass it.
In fact, the Senate heard only anecdotal evidence from school administrators urging the adoption of SB 337. They highlighted a few examples of abuse of the right to home school by people with no intention of providing an educational environment for their children. These parents have failed to provide the curriculum plans and annual evaluations already stipulated by state law. Adding to the bureaucratic burden of parents following the rules is not likely to increase compliance from those failing to meet current standards.
Please oppose SB 337, and send it to the full House with a recommendation that it be Inexpedient to Legislate. Thank you for your time and attention.
Grant Bosse
31 Central Street, Unit E
Hillsboro, NH 03244
The Bush administration announced today that it intends on busting through the regulatory maze to get the border fence built by the end of the year. Using waivers passed by Congress, the construction will bypass environmental and bureaucratic rules to complete 670 miles of the barrier before Bush leaves office:
As pressure built for concerted western protests to China over the crackdown in Tibet, EU leaders prepared to discuss the crisis for the first time today, amid a rift over whether to boycott the Olympics.
The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games' opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown's determination to attend the Olympics.
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department will propose on Monday that Congress give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system.
The proposal is part of a sweeping blueprint to overhaul the nation’s hodgepodge of financial regulatory agencies, which many experts say failed to recognize rampant excesses in mortgage lending until after they set off what is now the worst financial calamity in decades.
Democratic lawmakers are all but certain to say the proposal does not go far enough...
Numbers Game
New Hampshire Democrats were exuberant about their sweeping gains in the 2006 elections, but some savvy Republicans are pointing out that turnout in a presidential election year may be the key factor in November.
Grant Bosse, a former Sununu aide who is one of four Republicans running to unseat U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., notes that more than 327,000 voters turned out in the 2004 2nd District congressional race, which coincided with the John Kerry-George Bush contest. By contrast, only about 205,000 people voted in 2006, an off-year election.
Hodes actually won more votes in 2004 (125,280) when he lost to then-incumbent Charlie Bass, than Hodes won in 2006 (108,743) when he defeated Bass in a rematch.
“My main point is the Democrats didn't necessarily get all sorts of new voters out. The point is Republican voters stayed home,” Bosse said of 2006.
Congressman Paul Hodes (D-Concord) said, "there are legitimate concerns about the effects of this program and many states across the country have refused to participate in Real ID."
Hodes added that he will seek a Congressional investigation into the impact of the Real ID Act.
"Therefore, I am calling on the House Government and Oversight Committee to hold hearings on the impact of Real ID on the states as well as the serious privacy concerns this law raises."
We dedicated the Hillsboro Post Office last week to Officer Jeremy Todd Charron.
Jeremy was a year or two behind me in school. While we weren't especially close, our families know each other well. The Charron family has been an important part of Hillsboro all my life.
Jeremy was truly dedicated to serving his community, state and nation. He was a Marine. He was an officer with the Epsom Police Department. And one August morning more than 10 years ago, he was shot and killed in the line of duty.
Jeremy was an extraordinary young man. What has always struck me is not just the sacrifice he made during what should have been a routine check on a parked car. It's that every routine stop for our police officers carries the same risk. They accept this danger to keep us safe.
Sen. John Sununu joined us for the ceremony. At the request of the Hillsboro selectmen, he introduced legislation to name the Hillsboro Post Office for Charron. I was working in his office at the time and can attest to the time and energy that John personally used to guide that bill into law. President Bush signed the bill the day after Christmas. It was one of my proudest days working for the Senate.
We remember Jeremy Todd Charron not just for his ideals but for the dedication to put those ideals into action.
Thank you, Jeremy.
GRANT BOSSE
Hillsboro
Drawing a sharp distinction with the Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain, warned Tuesday against hasty government action to solve the mortgage crisis, saying “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”
But Mr. McCain’s remarks on Tuesday represented a stark tonal shift from the increasing calls for helping homeowners, as he faulted not only borrowers who engaged in risky lending, but suggested that some homeowners engaged in dangerous financial practices.
“Some Americans bought homes they couldn’t afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates,” he said.
Mr. McCain argued that even during the ongoing crisis, the vast majority of mortgage holders continued to make their payments.
“Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million homeowners are doing what is necessary — working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets to make their payments on time,” he said. “That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?”
Fellow, Republican candidate Grant Bosse, of Hillsboro, said that as a former journalist and a defender of the First Amendment, he believes candidates should be judged not on their donations, but their actions.
"Bob Clegg is free to raise money wherever he chooses. The voters get to decide whether any of these donations were for sale,'' Bosse said.
The first priority of the next Congress is to eliminate earmarks or special pet projects slipped into federal spending bills, Bosse continued. "We've got to root out the real corruption in Washington, those earmarks often created in exchange for campaign donations,'' he added.
With colleagues in Congress quick to claim credit where it is due, word moves quickly when undue credit is claimed.
"If it happens once or twice, you let it go," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), an Obama supporter. "If it becomes the mantra, then you go, 'Wait a minute.' "
Immigration is a case in point for Obama, but not the only one. In 2007, after the first comprehensive immigration bill had died, the senators were back at it, and again, Obama was notably absent, staffers and senators said. At one meeting, three key negotiators recalled, he entered late and raised a number of questions about the bill's employment verification system. Kennedy and Specter both rebuked him, saying that the issue had already been resolved and that he was coming late to the discussion. Kennedy dressed him down, according to witnesses, and Obama left shortly thereafter.
"Senator Obama came in late, brought up issues that had been hashed and rehashed," Specter recalled. "He didn't stay long."
Just this week, as the financial markets were roiling in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse, Obama made another claim that was greeted with disbelief in some corners of Capitol Hill. On March 13, Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, unveiled legislative proposals to allow the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee new loans from banks willing to help homeowners in or approaching foreclosure. Obama and Clinton were in Washington for a day-long round of budget voting, but neither appeared at the housing news conference.
Yet Obama on Monday appeared to seek top billing on Dodd's proposal.
"At this moment, we must come together and act to address the housing crisis that set this downturn in motion and continues to eat away at the public's confidence in the market," Obama said. "We should pass the legislation I put forward with my colleague Chris Dodd to create meaningful incentives for lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages so that Americans facing foreclosure can keep their homes."
Dodd did say that Obama supported the bill, as does Clinton. But he could not offer pride of authorship to the candidate he wants to see in the White House next year.
The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday's bombardment of Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.
It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.
Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.
But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.
Now, community organizations worry about their prospects for helping poor neighborhoods get online.
In Tempe, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity.
Jesus was a politically sophisticated man. He knew what was coming.
He faced the executioners bravely. He accepted, even embraced his death, and overcame it. By doing this he took the stinger out of Jerusalem and Rome. Behind all the taxes and tolls, price controls, and monopolies, and behind the governors and tetrarchs and consuls and emperors, lurked a tax-hungry greed, and the greed was backed up by the threat of death. The emperor’s colossal ego was fed by the people of Rome; the Romans were fed by the bread and circuses; the bread and circuses were fed by the armies; the armies fed on the captive peoples, and the captive peoples who didn’t like it were fed to the lions, or (even worse) the crucifix.
Such it has always been. When tyrants rule, money flows uphill and pain flows down. At the top is always a Caesar (or his etymological cousins, a Kaiser or a Czar). In the modern age, they usually make a hypocritical nod to democracy by calling themselves “President,” but the suffix “for life” tells us what’s really going on. At the bottom is the enemy of the state and what awaits him is a cross, or a gas chamber, perhaps a syringe filled with poison, or the observation section of a rape room and then a trip to the paper shredder. Every tyrant rules the same way: through threat of torture, humiliation, and death.
But when Jesus said, “Go ahead, do your worst,” and, as his early followers testified, overcame death, he ripped the stinger out, rendering the whole wasp twitching and dying from tip to tail. When his followers chose the cross as their symbol, they seemed to be turning “the world upside down,” but they weren’t; they were turning the upside-down world, finally, right-side-up. To get the flavor, imagine a revolutionary-era Frenchman displaying a tiny replica of the guillotine, or modern Iraqis wearing little rape-room replicas around their necks, or industrial paper shredders. Imagine Russian dissidents making the sign of the syringe, or think of Holocaust survivors who display their tattooed identification numbers with pride instead of shame. This is what the early followers of Jesus did with the Roman cross.
Yesterday, the federal agency granted Montana an extension, even though state officials didn't ask for one and insist they will not adhere to the Real ID law.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told The Associated Press that DHS "painted themselves in a corner."
A fourth state, New Hampshire, has asked to be exempted, but Homeland Security officials have not found that letter legally acceptable, so the Granite State has not received an extension.
Yet hours after Chertoff sent those letters yesterday, DHS Assistant Secretary Stewart Baker wrote to the attorney general of Montana, saying that even though the state was explicitly not seeking an extension, it would be granted one anyway. Baker reasoned the state's new license security measures already met many of the Real ID requirements anyway.
"I can only provide the relief you are seeking by treating your letter as a request for an extension," Baker wrote.
Schweitzer, Montana's Democratic governor, said his state had not backed down.
"We sent them a horse. If they choose to call it a zebra, that is their business," said Schweitzer.
Heading back through Grove ton, and then home for the Easter weekend.
In case I don't update much this weekend, have a great Easter.
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